How To Blog To Make Cash

How to Blog and Make Money

Blogging to make money online seems to have become the new online dream or pie in the sky job. Many people believe that you can type up a few words and add a new blog post every day and you will be rich. Why not, we have all seen those problogger sites where they went from being nobody to being blogger famous.

Before you start your new blog there are a few things to keep in mind about becoming a rich and famous blogger. Most of those pros took one year or longer at blogging to make any money from it. Sure you might be able to get a dollars here and there, but it will take time to get readers and page rank for your blog. If you don't know what page rank is - find out. If you are prepared to blog for the long haul and willing to do some blog promotion or spend money on advertising then go ahead and try blogging for cash.

You must learn to properly SEO your blog and get lots of traffic to your blog. There are many ways to get free blog traffic, but because it is free it more than likely means that you will have to do some work. You might have to write some articles and submit them. To get more traffic to your blog you should go to others blogs with a similar niche or theme and make relevant comments. There are also some good and free traffic exchanges out there, again you will need to work at this to get anywhere.

I tell you that you will need to work and blogging for cash will take time, not because I want to discourage you, but because I want you to know the truth. Most bloggers who want to make money with their blog will give up after just three months, if they make it that far they may again become bored or frustrated with no cash flow and give up after six months of blogging.

One way of persevering and making a lasting blog is to pick a niche that you will enjoy writing about day in and day out. Make sure you have many different topics in that niche to blog about. You will also need to ask yourself if enough people online will want to read what you are posting about. Then start your blog and post daily, seo it properly and get lots of traffic and you will be well on your way to making money online with a blog.

Utilize LinkWithin for More Free Traffic

Looking for more free traffic ideas?

Last week I blogged about how to Keep Your Blog Posts Archives Alive with the help of LinkWithin you can do just that.  LinkWithin is a free service that will go at the bottom of every post and show other blog post teasers from previous articles.  By showing related articles at the bottom of your posts your readers will continue reading more of your posts on topics that they are interested.

When your readers notice the other related articles that you have written they will tend to stay on your blog longer and your bounce rate will go down.  So by having this option down there at the bottom of your posts you are doing yourself and your visitors a favor.

Once LinkWithin crawls your blog they will start showing the articles related to each post.  You will see the words - "You might also like:" near the bottom.  The blog posts that appear are chosen by the title, tags, and content that is included in them. 

If you are looking for a free way to improve traffic on your blog and keep your readers engaged you might consider trying the free LinkWithin.  You can learn more at Linkwithin.com.

My Blog's 1 Month Birthday

Happy Bloggy Birthday:

Most bloggers won't celebrate a one month blogaversary, but you don't see that stopping me.  I am proud of the blog that I have accomplished this far and am hopeful for the one year birthday of my blog.  I just want to toot my own horn a little bit and show you what some hard work and dedication to getting more free blog traffic can do.

What I have accomplished with my blog in one month:
~ Over 216 unique visitors.  (free traffic my friends)
~ Eight Blog Readers through RSS or Email
~ Twitter followers = 69
~ Indexed in Google
~ Traffic Rank in US: 296,959 - better than some older blogs.
~ Technorati: Authority 130
~ Yahoo BackLinks: 178

Not a bad job for just one month, but that is just my 2 cents.  I am impressed with the amount of free backlinks coming in from Yahoo, it must have been the articles that I have posted.  Things are looking up and now I have some results to compare to next months findings.  For the most part everything should continue to go up, at least that is what I am trying to accomplish here anyway.

Keep Your Blog Posts Archives Alive

How to Keep Your Blog Archives Alive:

Do you have blog posts that are Left 4 Dead?  If you have written many blog articles you will want to keep them from being ignored by your readers.  Most visitors to your blog will read the first one or maybe two blog posts on your home page.  Don't let all of those old blog posts that you slaved over get lost in the vast wasteland of old blog posts.

There are several ways to keep your old blog posts featured or highlighted so that new blog visitors will read these gems.

• Add a popular blog posts widget on your sidebar and feature some posts you believe your readers should read.


• Make your old posts into a series and link them all together.
• Use your Twitter account or Facebook page to add some of your old blog post links.


• Put links in your new posts to an old post that explains the topic further. 


• You can put up a new blog post just listing your favorite old posts.  Possibly a top 10 favorite blog posts list.


• Interlink old posts to one another.


• Post the top three posts at the end of each month.


• Have a related posts plug-in at the bottom of each post.

You can always find a new way to get those old blog posts some more love.  Try posting a follow up post about how the blog post topic worked or didn't work or is no useful to you.  Think about it for a little bit, maybe get creative, and you can breathe new life into your old blog posts.

Day 20 - My Blogging Challenge Update

 Day 20 of my money making blog challenge.

 Here is what I have been up to in the last few days:

Because of my daily double posting I have not been spending enough time getting traffic to my blog.  I have definitely done a few things here and there, but not the big things that I had planned.  So now that I will only be publishing one blog post a day that will free up some time for me to work on getting all that lovely traffic that is needed to make money blogging.

•  I got my first comment, a result of making some blogging friends.
• Finally got my blog approved on Technorati.
• Working on a Blog Traffic Generation Course for myself that others can follow.

Still working towards my eventual six month goal of earning $300.00 a month.  I believe if I work on getting higher rankings and more traffic to my blog it will be a success and a money making blog in that time.

Why Your Blog Will Fail

Why Your Blog is Destined to Fail

Many people start blogs every day and the majority will never even reach the minimum $100 Google payout.  It is easy to start a blog, but it is not as easy to actually make money from blogging.

Reasons Blogs Fail:

• The blogger never made goals for their blog.
• The blog just does not get enough traffic to make money.
• Just posting is not enough.
• Inaction on the bloggers part.

I want to liken a brand new blog to a new restaurant in a big city.  If you opened up a new restaurant (not a franchise) you would make sure that you advertised as much as possible right at the grand opening so everyone would know about the new place.

At first you might see a trickle of customers but there is potential.  If your restaurant is appealing and the food is great and the service is good you will get free word of mouth advertising.  So you do lots of advertising at first and build up a good following and let your regulars use word of mouth and they will advertise for you.

The same thing must happen with a new blog.  The internet is a vast city with new blogs opening on every corner.  You must advertise to get people to visit your blog.  Then once you get a following your regulars will use word of mouth or link love to advertise for you.  If you have a funny post or important post they just want to share with friends or maybe they will bookmark you for many others to see.   They might make a post about your blog and put up a link for others to go check you out.

The restaurant is a pretty good analogy for blogging.  If you don't advertise in the beginning no one will come.  Likewise if your blog sucks or there is no real content people will quickly move on to the next one that came up in the search engine for your key words.

You have bloggers like Yaro Starak and Darren Rowse and they are the McDonald's of restaurants.  Which means that if they wanted to they would never have to advertise again.  Because all of their loyal fans and followers are doing the advertising for them.

How to Make Money With Your Blog

There are only 2 things you need to do to make money blogging.  When you start a new blog those two things need to be done on a daily basis.  New bloggers or struggling bloggers will need to make a commitment to check these two items off each and every day.

OK, do you want to know what the 2 really important things are that bloggers must do?  You may be disappointed to learn that you already know the answer to the blogging keys to success. 

How to Make Money Blogging:

1. Make useful posts that help your readers.
2. Drive traffic to your blog.

Told ya that you already knew them.  These  items need to be part of your daily blogging routine.  Because if you have no helpful content people will leave.  If you don't have traffic they can't find your blog.

It seems so simple and in reality it is, but the traffic is extremely important and can be hard to attain.  That is why you have to work on getting visitors daily at first.  Later when your blog has taken off the traffic will come on its own.  For now though you must do some work.  So click on over to my post  5 Ways to Get Traffic to Your Blog and get busy getting your blog traffic.

Day 15 - My Blogging Challenge Update

Day 15 of my money making blog challenge.

My blog is already two weeks old and I have made improvements and done research and learned about new things and myself in the process.  Here is what I have been up to in the last few days.

Traffic to my Blog:
Technorati has still not completed my blog acceptance.
RSS Readership is up to 8 readers, Thank you!
Pinged blog again.
Submitted Traffic Post to Blog Carnivals.

Unfortunately I did not spend as much time on getting traffic to my blog this second week and I can see the results or lack of results.  My blog traffic was going up and then it went back down and seems to have tanked, so I can see this is an area where I am going to have to put more focus.

Money from Blog:
I have gotten 2 whole adsense clicks, while that is great it is an extremely slow progression.

Not sure if the Google Analytics are working or not.  I know that the reports are behind or not up to the minute but they conflict.  Very confusing and frustrating because I was told this was the most accurate reporting for unique visitors.

I changed my mind:
You may have noticed, or not, but I am now a .com.  I changed my domain from a blogspot to http://www.mybloggingfortune.com/  I was doing some thinking back to a past failure and I want to be sure that history does not repeat itself.

I was an eBay Powerseller then one day one of my competitors got jealous of my success and reported me to eBay.  I did nothing to break the rules but their decision is final and there is no appeal process and I was out of luck.

I realized that blogger who is owned by Google had shut down some blogs around the last presidential election and they probably did nothing wrong either, some of them got reinstated, but that is not the point.

The point is that I don't want to work hard for six months or a year and then all of the sudden have my blog locked because they think I broke a rule.  This way if that happens I will just go out and get my own hosting and will move all my posts there.

Just a little explanation of the recent change of heart or mind.  They want to protect their investments and I am going to do the same for me.  I did not want to spend the money until I had it to reinvest back into the blog, but I felt it was the right thing to do before I went any further.

New Blog Goals:

•  Publish 2 Blog Posts a day until March
•  Work on getting traffic to my blog daily.

How Do You Make Money Online - Poll

How Do You Make Money Online With Your Blog?  Poll

I have decided to add a poll to my blog.  I am interested in how you are making money online.  I currently only utilize a couple of the money making ideas that are listed in the poll.  If there is a way you make money blogging that I have not listed please leave that in the comments.


Please Vote!

PollPub.com Vote

How Do You Make Money Online

Google Adsense
Affiliate Marketing
Selling Products
Donations
Selling Ad Space
All of the Above!



View Results

Poll powered by PollPub.com Free Polls

As you can see I have used a free poll option that I think works well with blogger.  Here are a few other options that you can use.  Note: I have not tried out the following polls, so your results may vary.

Blogger Tools: Polls

• Addpoll.com
• Freepolls.com
• Pollpub.com
• Freeblogpoll.com
• Vizu.com
• Blogpolls.com
• Go2Poll.com
• Tezaa.com

Putting a Poll up on your blog can be a great, quick way to connect with your readers and get them to interact with your site.  Getting visitors to interact with your site can get them to stay longer  on your money making blog and possible help you with future sales.

Do You Have What it Takes to Make Money Online with Blogging?

Do You Have the Right Stuff to Make Money Blogging?

Are you cut out to be a blogger?  Are you willing to do what it takes to be successful and learn the tricks of the trade to make money blogging?

If you answered yes to the above questions then you are part way there.  But there is more to blogging success then the will to make money.  You need to have the entrepreneurial spirit and qualities to reach your achievements.

Ready for the long haul? 
Blogging does not usually produce fast money results.  Are you willing to tough it out for months with no income?  Then when you have the traffic and you are still not making any money you need to be willing to revamp everything and change it up so that is can be profitable.

Personal Social Networking:
Blogging or other work online can leave you devoid of social contact. So you need to be prepared to not have the advantage of having coworkers that you can talk to on a lunch break, after work, etc.  You can combat the loneliness of the quiet blogging life by being active on Facbook or just by picking up your cell phone.  You can even join groups to give you some social contact during the week.  Just make sure your social life doesn't get in the way of your blogging priorities. 

Steps to Blogging Success:

• Make a Blogging Business Plan.
• List your monthly money making goals  - do what it will take to try to keep those on track.
• Make blog posting goals and stick to it.
• Don't put all of your eggs in one basket - multiple streams of income.
• Stay focused in your niche.
• Keep learning for success.

As a blogger you need the ability to make goals and find the ways to reach them.  You need to have the drive to push yourself beyond what others in your niche are willing to do.  Make sure you have the time to devote to your new blog and invest your time wisely.

Sometimes being desperate for money can be a big push for people who want to make money with blogs.  There are plenty of success stories out there and there are just as many failure stories too.  If there is something you don't understand or cannot do just ask someone who is already successful.  If they don't answer you then find the answer on your own or ask someone else, but find the solution and you will progress.  Hopefully that progression will lead to money making blogging opportunities.

Day 10 of My Blogging Challenge - Update

I have accomplished so much in just a week and a half for this blog.  I have looked back towards my past failures and successes and realized that when I set goals I reach them. I once wanted to be an eBay Powerseller and I reached that goal.  There have been other goals that I have set for myself and I have reached them.

I now realize why my previous attempt at becoming an affiliate marketer failed.  I did not know how to write for the Internet or how to write in a niche with targeted SEO.  Now after a year of freelance writing I understand this process much better.

You can learn from my mistakes and you can figure all of this out - the information is out there and hopefully most of it will be on my blog.

My Blogging Challenge News - Day 10

•  Indexed in Google!

•  Google Adsense Money - Only some spare change but boy was I excited!  I did a little dance because some angel came to my blog.  I know that one click does not make me rich or even indicate the success of my blog, but it made me feel vindicated and gave me incentive to keep on keeping on. 

• I am one-fourth of the way to my 100th blog post goal.  Using the double posting each day to reach this goal faster and to fill my blog out with useful content.

• Working on a free giveaway with email sign up - this is the point where I have failed before, I now know that to get where I want to go and to reach my money making goals - this step is all important to reaching those goals.

My blog is still considered a baby a newborn really.  This blog even though it is in infancy it is doing well, I think.  Indexed and already has made a tiny profit!

Do I Need My Own Website to Make Money Blogging?

Do you need your own website to make money online with a blog? 

Many people who stop by to read my blog may wonder why I am using blogger's blogspot to host my money making blog.  There are a few simple reasons I use the Google Blogger blogspot for the blog My Blogging Fortune and we will get to those later.

You may have read other blogs that are on a .com domain and thought that maybe you need to get your own domain name.  Well you are certainly welcome to and you may get indexed in the search engines faster than many blogs and you might get more traffic because you look more professional.  But getting your own domain is not necessary.  There are several big names who are making big money who simply use blogs by Blogspot or Wordpress. 

Why even use Blogger as my money making blogs provider?  Many of the - How to make money with a blog writers will tell you that you have to use Wordpress to have a successful money making blog.  Well I tell you that is not so.  You can use a Blogger blog and make just as much money if not more.

Why I recommend Blogger Blogspot Blogs:

• So easy a Caveman could do it.  Blogger is seriously easy!  

• It is free to set up a blog; free need I say more?

• Blogger is run by Google so Google Adsense is right there available for the blog, you just need to sign up under the monetize tab and you can have Google ads making you money in no time.

•  Now they also have Amazon Affiliates so you can set that up and recommend stuff from Amazon and get a percentage of those sales.

• You will get some of Blogspot or Blogger traffic for free just for being on their network.

If your blog gets too many readers and needs more bandwidth don't worry you can always switch it to a .com.  The blogger system has it set up so you can easily change over and you get your domain through GoDaddy for only $10  and the Blogpot domain will forward all of your readers to your new domain name.  Seamless and simple.

So you can see that you don't actually need your own website to make money blogging!

Note:  Make sure you back everything up somewhere.  Blogger could decide that you violated something in their Terms of Service or the agreement you have with them.  Then they can shut your site down - then inform you and you don't want to lose everything.  Get into the habit of saving either daily or weekly.

My Blogging Fortune Just Got Indexed in Google

Just one week after starting the money making blog My Blogging Fortune and it was  Indexed in Google this morning.

I have been checking Google everyday since I started my blogging challenge and it had not indexed yet.  Now some of the links that I had posted and bookmarks were showing up but not my blogs URL.   My blogs URL is:  http://cashblogmoney.blogspot.com/ and it finally showed up.  

This means that my new blog posts should get indexed also.  If I use the correct key words for my blog such as making money online with a blog, then people searching those words should find something about my blog and hopefully be compelled enough to come and visit and learn something.

I was very excited to find out that all my hard work that I had done last week actually worked.  I had been getting a little discouraged because it was taking so long to get my blog indexed.  I normally don't care too much but this blog I want to succeed and quickly so getting visitors and indexed in the search engine is a great advantage.

I was worried that it would get stuck because I was reading how it took some money making blogs anywhere from 3 to 6 months to get indexed.  So right there I am way ahead of the game.  This way I won't give up and I can use the extra time to post to my blog and build up readers and some other things that I have planned.  

So if you want to make money online with a blog like me just follow along and see just what I will do next to get more money from my blog!

Making Money Online Privacy Policy

This blog uses advertising companies when you visit.  These third parties ad companies might collect and use some info (but not your name, address, email address, or telephone number) about what might interest you in the future.   

Privacy
I respect your privacy just as much as I respect mine so I will safeguarding your privacy when you visit this site cashblogmoney.blogspot.com

Cookies
I do not use cookies but there is a chance that some of the advertisers will. 

Links
You may see some links to other sites when you wander around my site.  When you leave my blog I no longer control the privacy practices of those sites. 

How to Get Search Engines to Find Your Blog

Maybe you have been blogging for a while and you don't have that many visitors, comments or sales from your blog.  You want to get your blog noticed so you can make more money and you want the big three search engines to frequently update and highly rank your blog.

Getting the big 3 (Yahoo, Google and Bing) to notice your blog may not be all that easy. One thing the search engines are looking for is content.  Are you posting valuable content?  If you are blogging a few words here and there and put up blurbs and updates that is great.  To make your blog posts more valuable you need to post longer content.  Every week you need to post something targeted to your blogs audience with keywords that are related to your blog.

My blog named My Blogging Fortune is about making money with your blog.  So when I write a blog post I try to include the following words: Make money, making money, blog for cash and so on.  When you use your key words, making money, and other related words, profit and sales, you are alerting the search engines that you are contributing to the online community.

You may have heard of SEO or search engine optimization well that is another story, but it has its place in your blog.  You need key words and words related to your blogs key words to get noticed.  I am not talking about keyword spamming because the search engines will rank your site lower for that kind of thing.

How to Get Search Engines to Find Your Blog:
Try writing a blog post that reminds you of an article you would read.
Make it related to your blog.
Strategically add key words.
Length is important - aim for somewhere between 200 - 300 words.

I also suggest:
Submitting your blog to  BlogCarnavals
Submit an article to GoArticles


You can do it and you will get more readers for your effort and more readers translates into a money making blog, which is what we are after.

FYI - This blog post had over 300 words and it only took 15 minutes or less.

Day 3 - My Blogging Fortune Challenge

Day 3 of my Blogging Fortune Challenge and here is what I am doing. 


I realized something about my blogging habits today.  I have never had a blog that has gotten past 50 blog posts.  I don't know if I get bored or frustrated that the money is not poring in right away.  I also know that none of my blogs have lasted a mere 6 months before I give up.

From experience on other sites I know that making money on the Internet requires some hard work and time.  So I am going to try to do everything I can remember to make a blog successful and actually put in a little bit of time and hard work to accomplish that.  I am also going to give it time.

I have set some goals for my blog.  
In order to make money or make my blogging fortune I will...

• Make at least 100 Blog Posts
• Work to get more Traffic to my Blog
• Continue my Challenge for 6 months

 Here is what is going on with my blog on Day 3 of My Blogging Fortune Challenge:
I wrote a new blog post about 5 More Free Ways to Get Traffic to Your Blog.  I have been implementing those new 5 traffic ideas.



My Free Traffic Attempts:
*  Submitted blog to the major search engines - What the heck, it might help.
*  I pinged my blog
*  I am in the process of adding my blog to a blog directory
* Set my blog address as my signature in my email - every little bit helps

Money Updates - None Yet


There are plenty of more things I can do to generate massive traffic to my new blog and there are many ways to maximize my money making potential.  So I will continue plugging away until I get it right!

Day 2 - My Blogging Fortune Challenge

Day 2 of my Blogging Fortune Challenge and here is what I am doing. 

I am not happy with the blogger template that I am using, it has a problem and is taking to long to load.  I don't have the time to fix that now so I will remedy it later.

In order to make money blogging with this blog I am going to have to get some traffic.  I wrote a blog post about free traffic here:  5 Ways to Get Traffic to Your Blog

So now I am going to practice what I preach.  Going to try to use the traffic ideas to get my own traffic to this money making blog.

My Free Traffic Attempts:
*Facebook blog link
* Twitter - tweeted the blog link
* Digg, I dugg this blog
*Used the blog link in some forum signatures
*Made some friends, well I am following other blogspot blogs that interest me.

So now we sit and wait to see if these free blog traffic ideas get my blog on the search engines soon. 

My Google Analytics are up and running but I probably won't have any statistics for at least a week.  I also have not gotten no Google Adsense clicks as of yet. 

Added two blog posts and another clickbank link to maximize my money making potential.

Where to Get Paid to Blog

Paid Blogging Jobs:

If you are looking for places where you can get paid money for blogging I have a list below.  There are many places that want to pay you for blog posting.  If the money is there and they are willing to pay for blogging why not take them up on it.

I am always looking for new ways to make money from blogging and the list of places to get cash for blogging can come in handy if you need to earn a little more money each month.

Paid to post on your own blog:
PayPerPost
Review Me
Creative Weblogging
PayU2blog

Paid to post on their blogs:
Today.com
Blogger Party
Blogetery
Orble

So if you are not ready for your own blog yet or think that you can make more money from the paid to post sites then check out a few of the above sites.

I have actually blogged at Today.com but grew tired of the niche that I picked.  So my recommendation is to make sure you won't grow tired of your blog topic so you can keep getting paid to post.